UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:___________________ I, _________________________________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in: It is entitled: This work and its defense approved by: Chair: _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ The Faces of Reims: An Investigation into the Meaning of the Corbel Heads of the Cathedral of Notre Dame at Reims Thesis proposal submitted to The Art History Faculty Of the School of Art / College of DAAP University of Cincinnati In partial fulfillment of the requirement For the degree of Masters of Arts in Art History Committee Chair – Kristi Nelson Sarah A. Moeller Bachelors of Arts in Art Abstract Gothic cathedrals are unique and splendid objects which record a time in history so far removed from today that it is sometimes difficult to comprehend. The cathedral of Reims has a population of heads or masks sculpted on its exterior that serve the architectural purpose of being decorative corbels. These heads are emotionally expressive and beautiful, but investigating previous scholarship on the subject gives little insight as to why such a program exists. Looking at these heads and comparing them to previous and contemporary sculpture that is similar in nature, and also to manuscript illumination gives insight into where this representation comes from. These heads are important to examine because they show the renewed interest in using Roman sculpture for artistic inspiration. The craftsman is turning into the artist. The heads show the growing humanism of the thirteenth century. 1 2 Table of Contents: Abstract 1 Table of Contents 3 List of Illustrations 4 Introduction 6 Chapter 1 11 Chapter 2 22 Chapter 3 33 Conclusion 44 Bibliography 47 Illustration Citations 49 Illustrations 52 3 List of Illustrations 1. Corbel head, northern window 2. Corbel heads, north tower, western façade. 3. Corbel head, north transept. 4. Corbel head, north rose window. 5. Corbel head. 6. Atlas and corbel head, apse. 7. Corbel heads around windows of the apse. 8. Corbel heads on the flying buttresses of the nave. 9. Corbel heads. 10. Corbel head. 11. Corbel head. 12. Corbel head, northern transept. 13. Corbel head. northern transept. 14. Corbel head, northern transept. 15. Corbel head, northern transept. 16. Corbel head, interior of tower. 17. Corbel head, north tower, beneath rib vaulting. 18. Corbel head, south transept, triforium. 19. Corbel head, green man, window of choir. 20. Corbel head, window of choir. 21. Corbel head, window of choir. 22. Corbel head, window of choir. 23. Corbel head, lion, window of choir. 24. Corbel head, window of choir. 25. Corbel head, window of choir. 26. Corbel head, south transept façade, rose story. 27. Angel of the Annunciation, west portal, left door, left jamb. 28. Corbel heads, choir, south side. 29. Corbel heads, north transept façade, rose window. 30. Corbel head, face-puller. 31. Corbel head, east tower, south transept. 32. Mouth-puller, capital, Wells cathedral. 33. Grotesque capital, Wells cathedral. 34. Houses of Parliament, faces. 35. Door jamb, west façade, Chartres cathedral. 36. Reims, the Annunciation and the Visitation, west jamb figures. 37. Reims, western façade. 38. Bawdy betrothal, Ormsby Psalter. 39. Clerestory windows Semur-en-Auxois. 40. Clerestory windows, Semur-en-Auxios. 4 41. Roman theater mask, marble relief. 42. Roman theater mask, terra cotta. 43. Mouth-puller, romanesque monastery, Castletown. 44. Didyma, roman medusa head. 45. Green man, Bamberg cathedral. 46. Reims labyrinth. 47. Mouth-Puller, monastery, Puy-de-Dome. 48. Sex on the edge of the illuminated manuscript. 49. Creatures at church of Saint Pierre, Aulnay-de-Saintonge. 50. Man coming out of the corner at Aulnay. 5 Introduction In this thesis, I will investigate the sculpted heads of Reims cathedral. Generally referred to as masks, this program of sculpture is placed high up on the glazed arcades of the outer triforium and as corbels on the clerestory windows, barely visible from the ground. These corbel heads are located on every side of the exterior. Much has been written on the cathedral, so it is intriguing that while mentioned in literature and described stylistically, no one has attempted to make more than a cursory case for their meaning. It has been suggested that the sculptures were practice pieces sculpted by young artists to learn the art of sculpting the human face. Other historians think they could be portraits of the town‟s citizens or self-portraits of the artist, a way in which to show social stratification, or an illustration of the “common man” perhaps mocking authority. Through my research, I will to show that the corbel heads at Reims cathedral are a planned, deliberate program. I will show how the corbel heads evolved from previous sculptural types, and how they take part along with other art of the age, in the changing values of art. I will show that this program is indeed a precursor to the human representation to come in the fourteenth century. The cathedral of Reims was begun in 1211, exactly one year after the earlier edifice burned down, and the west towers were not completed until around 1290. According to historians, Reims occupies a unique niche in medieval cathedral architecture because of its extensive interior and exterior sculpture program. Past scholarship indicates that there were originally 162 life-sized corbel sculptures. Only 125 of the original masks can be either viewed today, or reconstructed from early photos, plaster casts, and written accounts. Some of these are full figures, some are busts, most are simple heads, and the majority are executed in a very natural and expressive style. From the study and photos of earlier historians, the masks and busts show the four evangelists, the virtues Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance, seven lions, nine animals resembling sheep, pigs, or horses, three demons, three kings, two foliated heads, thirteen women, and 110 men with a variety of 6 headgear and expressions. The carefully executed observations of the human face and of emotion seen in the heads can also be found in the other monumental sculpture of the cathedral. A certain freedom was doubtless permitted the artist here, for whereas the saints were made to conform to some modicum of respectability and to the wishes of the archbishop, there was probably not as much constraint for the sculptor in making the corbel heads. Recent scholarship has explored information concerning the evolving position and power of the artist in the building of the cathedrals during the thirteenth century, and the importance of the growing cities in which they are found. I believe that the older literature, coupled with these new ideas, help to bring into focus the reason these corbel heads exist. My research will look at these heads in a manner thus far ignored. I will examine the masks of Reims as representations of the community of the cathedral, taking into account the Church of the time, the location of the sculptures on the building, and the importance of the artist and of the common worker. In my research, the first scholar I encountered who commented on the faces was Michael Camille. In his book Gothic Art Glorious Vision (1996), he provides an illustration of a mask and gives an overview of their placement and purpose according to other historians. The masks have been said to represent the masons or artists who created the cathedral sculpture, as a sort of signature. They could represent “different psychotic and pathological states as medievals understood them,” (p. 165) or could be a representation of the lower classes. Camille comes from a background of investigating marginal imagery in medieval society, especially that of illuminated manuscripts. The heads can be considered very similar to this kind of marginal representation, and in his book Image on the Edge, The Margins of Medieval Art (1992), Camille investigates the use of these out of the way images in art. Camille considers why this type of image exists and how it affects the overall meaning of the art of which it is a part. The corbel heads are included in his assessment, but he relegates them to practice material. 7 William Wadley‟s 1984 doctoral dissertation at the University of Texas on the Reims masks is the most in-depth piece of literature on the subject, for his is the only study devoted exclusively to the program. Wadley has several aims, the first is to provide a general history of the various reconstruction campaigns which took place on the cathedral, and to determine which masks are original thirteenth-century pieces, and which were replaced during these restoration campaigns. He groups the original masks into stylistic and chronological categories in order to understand more clearly when the building of the cathedral and the sculpting of the monumental figures occurred. Wadley also describes the influence of the sculpture of Reims, in particular the masks, on the program of sculpture at Bamberg cathedral in Germany. His aims, then, are not directed toward understanding what the sculptures represent, but toward how the works can help us understand and date other parts of the cathedral. Wadley‟s primary research at Reims and his exhaustive categorizing of the heads will greatly assist my own analysis. In his book, French Sculpture during the Reign of Saint Louis 1226-1270 (1929), Paul Vitry includes illustrations of the heads and briefly discusses them. Vitry suggests that they are not portraits, but are natural studies of the human head inspired by observation of the real world. Vitry thinks further that younger artists, not the masters, carved these pieces. Willibald Sauerländer, in Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270 (1970), on the other hand, restricts his interest to the dates of origin and to the connection of the works to the masters of the larger sculptures.